


Lucid Dreaming

by Shunkaha



Category: Final Fantasy X
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 19:58:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6128422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shunkaha/pseuds/Shunkaha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Much as Yuna once couldn't bring herself to tell Tidus of the fate she was sure awaited her, Tidus knows he can't tell her what he's learned about his connection to the fayth and their dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucid Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> It's been many years since I played FFX, but I recently stumbled on the "movie" compilation videos of the game on Youtube, which seem like a fair way to relive the story when digging out the PS2 archive and playing through another100+ hour game feels too daunting. Nostalgia motivated me to dig this piece up, my one and only foray into Final Fantasy fanfic. But I am rather fond of this little piece. I don't often feel motivated to write romantic fanfiction, but something about the bittersweet quality most FF games bring to their romances really does speak to me.

** Lucid Dreaming **

  

            It’s a funny thing, but I never did doubt what the kid said.

It’s been some damn long and weary months since then, running all over Spira, trying to get ready for the final day – and only now, thinking back, does it seem ludicrous or unbelievable. A dream? All of Zanarkand, all of my memories, all of who I am, a dream?

            But I still believe it. Some things, you just know. Even if you didn’t know that you knew them. You only have to see the truth once in order to recognize it. It still doesn’t make any real _sense_ to me, but I believe it, and I guess that’s all that matters.

            Still, moments like this, sitting out here on the deck of Cid’s airship and watching Zanarkand crumble even further into ruin below me, I can’t help but wonder. I ask myself questions that I really shouldn’t spend time stressing over, questions that don’t have any answers. I guess I’m just not a strong enough person to stop asking them.

            I wonder stuff like – whose dream am I, really? There were so many fayth in that cliffside… how can so many minds put together one person without… arguing, you know? Someone thinks red hair, someone thinks black. You’re going to end up with some seriously frightening people that way, even by dreaming standards. Or do each one of those people stuck in that wall create dreams all on their own? Who do I belong to? Whose memories… made me?

            And then I start to think – what kind of _crazy_ person would _want_ to dream about someone like me?

            All right, sure, there’s the star player of the Abes bit, and yes, I’ll be the first to say it’s not a bad gig. Hell, _I_ dreamed about it when I was a kid. Which is a weird dichotomy I’m not even going to try getting my head around.

            But whose memories went into the take-out seafood habit? Who remembered not being a morning person, and dealing particularly badly with hangovers, and decided those were details worth recreating in a Zanarkand that will last forever?

            And then I wonder… was there ever a _real_ me? A Tidus out there who _was_ the star player of the Zanarkand Abes, who _did_ own the world, even if only for a short time, who knew how to make playing in the blitz stadium like flying, who knew how to smile just the right way to get Cute Fan #6 to hang around after the game was done? Did one of those people in the wall see _that_ Tidus, and think he was worth dreaming about?

            And _then_ I wonder… was he really?

            It’s a funny thing, and I never would have believed it just a few months ago, but if you asked me now, if you showed me a way… I wouldn’t go back to that Zanarkand.

I’ll take this one right below me as the airship hovers in wait – this Zanarkand, where the buildings are half sunken and gone, where the only lights in the shadows are rivers of pyreflies swirling where the water arches and the neon used to be.

            I could say something melodramatic and deep like – this is the Zanarkand where I found myself, where I learned who I really am and what I’m really made of, dream or no dream. I could say that this is the Zanarkand where I finally took control of my destiny, where I finally learned about the things that really matter, and about the choices worth making. And all of that’s true, I guess. 

            But if I’ve changed at all since coming to Spira, it’s in the way I’ve learned to be a more honest person with myself, and about myself, and if I’m gonna be honest, then the biggest reason of them all for choosing this Zanarkand is coming up behind me right now, trying to move quietly over the deck of the airship so as not to disturb me from my ever so deep thoughts.

            But I’ve learned to hear Yuna’s footsteps too well by this point. We all have. She’s never going to be able to sneak off – or be snuck off by someone else – ever again.

            “Hey,” I say, without turning my head. I take the time to try to get my expression under control. It’s fine being pensive and serious by myself, but for Yuna I’ll sure as hell smile. She probably came out here in the first place because she’s worried that I’m watching Zanarkand and brooding. Which I am, of course. But there’s no way I’m going to admit it. We’ve got other things to worry about. _She’s_ got other things to worry about.

            She doesn’t need to know about… dreams.

            “Hey,” she echoes back, in that tone of voice that puts a warm feeling in my chest every time – part smile, part singing, part sadness… all Yuna.

            She stops next to me, and I look up at her, my arms folded and my elbows on knees, and I manage a smile. Maybe not my most dazzling, granted, but at least it’s something.

            “Can I… join you?” she asks, hesitant.

            As if she needs to ask.

            “Of course.” I pat the deck next to me, close by my hip, hoping she’ll follow my suggestion exactly, the closer the better. But I’m not surprised when she sits down, carefully as always and arranging her skirt, with at least a hand’s width between us. A bit disappointed, yeah, but not surprised. And somehow even space between us doesn’t matter. When you’re near Yuna, it’s like she’s all around you.

            Or maybe it’s just that way with me.

            Either way, it’s good.

            “Do you think they’re… all right?” she asks.

            “Are you kidding? Of course they are. We’ve been through these ruins before, there’s nothing new down there to surprise us. And besides, we’ve all gotten a lot stronger these last weeks.”

            “That’s true,” she concedes, settling her hands in her lap. “And she did take Sir Auron with her.”

            “Yeah, like she could sneak off _without_ him noticing and tagging along,” I say with a snort.

            Yuna giggles, but quickly supresses it. She still doesn’t feel right making fun of Auron, no matter how many times I try to convince her that he could do with some being made fun of. If he’s gonna have such a good time laying into _me,_ then payback is fair play in my book.

            “And she’s got Lulu and Kimahri too,” Yuna adds.  

            “Yeah,” I say, grinning. “Rikku’s not going to be having any fun at all tonight.”

            “Still, I wish she’d asked us to go with her. We could have helped!”

            “Nah, this suits me just fine. If she wants to go running around up to her eyeballs in fiends trying to gather who-knows-what sort of weird artifacts, just so that she can stay up till dawn customizing Wakka’s armguards, that’s her business. Me, I’m glad for an evening off. You should take advantage of it too. Relax. Up here, you can enjoy the view without having to worry about fighting something… gooey.”

            “That’s true,” she says again, with perfect seriousness, and I worry for a moment, because that should have managed to get at least a ghost of smile from her, but then I understand why it didn’t when she adds, “And are you… enjoying the view?”

            “Sure,” I say quickly, then catch her expression, and sigh. “Well… I guess so. I mean… I have to admit, it _is_ sort of… pretty. At least from up here.”

            “Yes. I guess it is.”

            She doesn’t say anything else, but I can tell she wants to, and I know she won’t rest until she’s sure that I’m not… brooding.

            For her sake, I can lie.

            “Actually, I’m wondering where my house would be down there.”

            “Your house?” She looks at me, her eyes wide with surprise. With only the airship’s deck lights and the glow of pyreflies far below to illuminate her face, you can’t see the different colors of her eyes. But even in darkness, it’s like she glows. “Do you think it’s still standing… somewhere down there?”

            “Nah. It wasn’t really a building. A lot of people lived on boats, with wide decks so that you could pull up right next to the street docks. There was water running all through the city. My boathouse must have sunk and rotted away ages ago.” I sigh again, locking my arms tighter around my knees, and can’t help but murmur, “If it was ever there to begin with.”

            “Hm?”

            “Oh, nothing. Just… remembering.”

            “Tell me,” she says, and she shifts just slightly, bringing herself a tiny bit closer to my side. “Tell me what it would have been like for you, on just a normal day in Zanarkand.”

            “A normal day?”

            It’s hard, staring down at these vast ruins, to remember what _normal_ meant.

            “Yes. What did you do, when you got up in the morning? Where did you go?”

            “Well… to start with, I wouldn’t wake up till noon, if I could possibly help it.”

            “Sir Auron would say that you still do that now.”

            “Hey!”

            She covers her mouth to laugh, and I lean to the side to give her a nudge with my shoulder.

            “I’m sorry. Please, go on.”

            “Well, then I’d look around to see if there was anything left over from last night’s take-out.”

            “Take-out?”

            “Yeah, food. You send a comm-wave to a restaurant, and they send a guy on a speeder-boat over to deliver your meal to you.”

            “What, all the way across the city?” she asks in wonder.

            “Yeah.”

            “Amazing!”

            “Yeah… I guess it is. Eventually you start to take it for granted, though. So let’s see… after that, I’d head out for some training.”

            “In the ocean?”

            “No. I never did like sea training.”

            I don’t say why, but she doesn’t ask for clarification, and I know she’s remembering what I told her about Jecht heading out to sea for training and never coming back. But if I let her think too long about that, she’ll start to feel guilty for asking, so I keep talking.

            Don’t want to think about him right now anyway.

            “The Abes have their own sphere pool for training. All the major teams do. Not as big as the stadium, but plenty big.” I realize I’m talking in the present tense again, and close my hands into fists – slowly, so that Yuna won’t notice. “The rest of the team liked to train in the mornings, so I usually had the pool to myself for the afternoons.”

            “Didn’t you need to practice together?”

            “Sure. Four times a week, more in tournament season. But group practices were always at night, so that you could get used to the way the stadium lights refract in the water for night games. We almost always played night games. I guess people like the… glamour.”

            This time she nudges me, a gentle sway and light tap of her bare shoulder against my arm.

            “And did you like the glamour?”

            “Sometimes,” I answer honestly. “When the stadium was lit up, and the pool started to fill… and all the people shouting… it’s hard not to get swept up in that, you know?”

            “I’m sure you were very glamorous.”

            I give her a narrow look, arching one eyebrow. I can’t quite tell if she’s teasing me or not. The night breeze is blowing her hair over her profile, and I can’t see her face clearly.

            And why should I let this moment pass?

            Who knows how many more we’ll have, after all.

            I reach across my body with my right hand to carefully pull her hair back, and wish that I’d known to prepare for this moment so I could have taken off my gloves to feel her hair against my skin.

            No one blushes as pretty as Yuna.

            “Well, _you_ know what it’s like, Yuna. Some days you just want to be somewhere quiet and let the crowds pass you by instead of swarming around you.”

            “Yes,” she says quietly, blush fading into a somber expression. “Some days you do wish that, even though you know you should feel flattered or grateful instead.”

            As usual, she’s much more generous in her feelings about a situation than I am, but I let it pass.

            “Anyway, most days were pretty much the same,” I go on. “If it wasn’t training, it was playing a match. If it was off-season, you were just counting the days until the new regimen.”

            “And didn’t you… go out with friends? To walk the city and see all the amazing sights?”

            “Heh. Amazing sights?” It’s funny how much my memory of Zanarkand – or at least my feelings about it – have changed since touching those fayth. “I guess so. But you know, you can get used to anything. You take all your amazing things for granted. All of the people I spent time with…”

I can’t bring myself to call them friends. I would have, the day I first washed up on Spira. I would have said I had plenty of friends.

            But I don’t think I ever really had friends, not like I have them now.

            None of those people, spending time with Jecht’s son, spending time with the Abes’ star player, would ever have faced down a fiend at my side, or stood over me to take the next hit while passing back a potion, or had the patience to teach me magic through weeks and weeks of mind-numbing failures, or taken pity and let me sleep through my watch by the campfire just because I didn’t know better than to eat those Macalania mushrooms.

            “Yes?” Yuna prods me gently.

            “Huh? Oh. Well, all of the people I spent time with, they’d been in the city their whole lives just like me. You go out, sure. Lots of stuff to do, any hour of the day or night. But most of the time you don’t really remember the specifics of what you did. It takes more than amazing sights to make things memorable, you know?”

            “You’re right. But I would still love to see Zanarkand, the way you remember it. Was it really like… like that recreation that…”

            She’s going slow so as to avoid the name, and I sure as hell don’t want to hear that bastard’s name on her lips ever again, so I jump in before she can finish.

            “Yeah, it was. I even recognized one of the avenues, the A-East promenade. I used to ride that shift-walk all the time. Best brewshops in the quarter.”

            “Amazing,” she breathes, her gaze on the ruins spread below us, filling nearly all the horizon. “It was so… bright, and alive. It’s hard to imagine ever taking it for granted.”

            “Well, it’s hard for me to imagine ever taking something like Lulu’s magic for granted. Or your Aeons. I guess we’re all a bit too close to our wonders to see them sometimes. Or something,” I finish lamely. I’ve never been good at this deep stuff.

            “Maybe you’re right.”

            But I wish I hadn’t said it, because it’s got me thinking now. Asking more questions I can’t seem to stop asking.

            Zanarkand’s summoners didn’t stand a chance against Bevelle’s machina, he said.

            Why didn’t the fayth put summoners into their dream?

            Every once in a while a fiend crept through. I guess you could call that a bit of a nightmare sneaking in here and there. Makes sense enough. But every time we’d see footage of it on the news-screens, the Guard were always out there dealing with them, never summoners.

            Maybe they were just trying to forget that their summoning hadn’t been enough. I guess I can understand that. If you can control your dreaming, why dream about your failures?

            “Anyway,” I say, trying to sound chipper. I used to be better at this. Too much time around Auron or something. Need to start playing more card games with Rikku. Except she’s always taking my money. “No point looking back to the past these days. It’s never as real as you think it was.”

            I unfold my legs, put my arms above my head, and reach back into a good stretch.

            Now that’s another thing I wonder about – which guy in that rock remembered liking stretching so much that he wanted to pass the habit on to me? There are few things quite as awesome as a nice stretch. Not even a blitzer’s training habits can really explain it.

            I let out a good sigh and follow the stretch all the way through, flopping down onto my back.         I’ve had enough of staring at Zanarkand for one night, even if it _is_ beautiful… in a creepy, horrible, infested-by-memories sort of way.

            The stars are better.

            The stars, at least, are the same.

            “What do you mean by that?” Yuna asks softly.

            Too softly. Damn, I’m slipping up again. Ever since Bevelle, when the kid had to get cryptic in her presence, she’s been giving me the occasional look. Worried. She suspects I’m hiding something.

            But I can’t tell her.

            I just can’t.

            “Oh, nothing. It’s just that… well… we put our spin on things, don’t we? When we’re looking back at the past. We let it get all distorted. But maybe it’s better that way. It would be pretty awful if remembering the past was like walking around down _there…_ with all your memories perfectly preserved.”

            She’s silent for a long while, and I can see her back silhouetted against the indigo sky.

            “And do you feel,” she says at last, “that your memories of Sir Jecht… are the same? What we saw when we were in the dome – ”

            “Yeah, well,” I interrupt her quickly, regretting having let the conversation get here. “Distorted or not, memories still have their power over you.”

            Too close to home. Far too close to home.

            I grit my teeth, holding in a growl of frustration, and press my hands against my face for a moment, blocking out the stars, trying to block out unwelcome thoughts and questions, questions, always more questions without answers. What’s the point of asking them, really?

            I can’t change what I am.

            I can’t change what I never was.

            “I’m sorry,” she whispers. 

            “Huh?” I move my hands to see that Yuna’s turned around, her hands on the deck as she leans slightly down toward me, and even in the shadows the worry on her face is clear.

            “I’m sorry,” she says again, more firmly. “I shouldn’t have said anything about – ”

            “No, don’t apologize. It doesn’t matter. I’m just… tired, you know?”

            “Yes.” She gives a slight nod. “I know.”

            Doesn’t she just. Hell, she knows it better than me. Better than any of us. Though maybe Auron could give her a run for her money.

            But Auron is suddenly the last thing on my mind when, sighing in a rare display of open weariness, Yuna leans down all the way onto her elbows, and finally stretches out onto her side on the deck, tucking herself against me, her head on my shoulder. I wrap my arm around her instantly, pulling her even closer, and close my eyes.

            Nothing else in the world – in any world, in any time – smells quite as good as Yuna’s hair. 

            I sigh happily, bringing up my free hand to clasp hers and press it against my chest, so that I can feel her skin against my own.

But I can feel her shaking suddenly, and close my fingers tighter around her hand.

            “What’s wrong?”

            “Oh, nothing,” she says quickly, and now I can tell by the pitch of her voice that she’s laughing. “I’m just thinking… what would happen if Wakka came out on deck now…”

            “Ugh, let’s not! I could do without another blitzball to the head.”

            “He does enjoy pushing you around.”

            “I can tell. But hey, if it makes him happy, I guess I can put up with it.”

            “Yes, that’s how I’ve always felt about it too. Wakka, Lulu… they like to fuss. It makes them feel like they’re being useful and important in my life. Letting them fuss is the least I can do to thank them. They’re the same with you now, too.”

            “Yeah. I guess Lulu figured that just buying me that comb back in Luca wasn’t enough. I swear I’m going to wake up one morning and she’ll have braided my hair in my sleep. Presentability my ass! Like the fiends are going to care about how neat my hair is!”

            “Oh no, I like your hair just the way it is.”

            “ _Thank_ you.”

            “Even if it does sometimes look like you were on the wrong end of one of Lulu’s thunder spells.”

            “Hey!”

            She giggles again, nestling in even closer, and it’s so rare to see her acting naturally like this, so rare to be _alone_ with her like this, that I don’t even want to roll over, to gather her in totally and kiss her…

            Well, okay, I want to. Pretty damn badly.

            But I guess I _have_ learned things on this journey after all, and most of them – the most important things – about Yuna herself. I know that even though the Final Summoning is behind us, she still doesn’t think she’ll live through fighting Sin. She’s so used to thinking that her death is just around the corner that not even this new hope we’re chasing so desperately can quite penetrate. She _wants_ to dream, but she’s…

            She’s not like the fayth. She can’t make her dreams reality just by wishing hard enough.

            But they made me, and _I’ll_ make Yuna’s dreams reality.

            Some of them, at least.

            The kid says the dream will fade. I wish that I didn’t believe him, but I do. While I still have the chance, I’m going to be what Yuna needs me to be.

            And right now, she needs to just lie down, to lay it all down, and be held for once – instead of it always being the other way around.

            I can do that. It surprises even me, what Yuna can get me to do, and to be.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had a girl laying at my side like this, but those memories really do feel like they’re a thousand years and a reality away. Which person in the rock remembered being the sort of guy who could have brought Cute Fan #6 back to his place and regretted it in the morning? That’s a memory I can’t understand wanting to recreate in dreams, and for the first time in my life I feel bitter about it.

            But I guess even that memory is part of me. Dream me, real me, it’s all the same thing in the end. I know who I am. Or rather, I know who I was.

            And I know who I’ve become, since coming to Spira.

            Since Yuna.

            I like this me much better. And I guess that makes me more than a dream. That makes me real. I’m not the same person who was once a dream of the fayth. Not anymore. That makes me my own. Or maybe it makes me Yuna’s. Whichever. Doesn’t matter, in the end. I like it, and that’s all that matters.

            For as long as it lasts.

            “Tidus.”

            “Yeah?”

            “Are these the same stars? As in your Zanarkand?”

            I’m not surprised that she seems able to read my mind. Not anymore.

            “Yeah.”

            “Good.”

            I smile, even though she can’t see it, and turn my head just slightly to the side to put my face even closer to her hair. The beads she wears in it roll over my collarbone, and her fingers curl lightly against my chest, and I think I’ll have to kill Wakka if he _does_ come out on the deck right now. Not even Lulu would blame me.

            “Yeah,” I say again. “It’s all good.”

            I wonder a lot of things about dreams, and memories, and who and how and why and all those other questions that have no answers. But I guess in the end it doesn’t matter if those other questions never get answered, because I’m glad of one thing at least, one thing that makes all the others irrelevant.

            I’m glad for whoever’s memories made a dream of me that would know how to love Yuna.

            That’s enough.           

            That’s going to have to be enough.


End file.
